Electronic gaming machines have been known for some time. Prior to computer or state machine controlled machines, mechanical gaming machines typically referred to as “slot machines” were known. With the development of electronics and computers, the old mechanical machines have been replaced and now typically exist only as antiques.
Computer controlled gaming machines include stepper driven reel-type slot machines as well as machines which present the game at a video display. Traditional CRT displays have now been replaced with flat and curved LED displays. Pertinent to the present invention, the video displayed games typically present only a single game for play or, in some machines, several instances of the same game for concurrent or simultaneous play. For example, it is known to have an electronic Keno game providing the player with multiple Keno cards for playing the same game draw. It has also been known to concurrently play multiple hands of video Poker as disclosed in Moody, U.S. Pat. No. 6,007,066, titled “Electronic Video Poker Games”. Schultz, U.S. Pat. App. 2011/0287824 filed Jun. 9, 2010 and titled “SLOT MACHINE GAME FOR TWO PLAYERS” also discloses a game for two players presenting side-by-side games. Of course it has been known for a single player to play different, adjacent, slot machines.
A drawback of prior gaming machines is that a single player cannot select two or more different games to play concurrently/simultaneously at their gaming machine. By different what is meant is that the games have one or more of different play mechanics including, but not limited to pay table (base game award structure), pay line structure (number and arrangement), theme, scatter symbol awards, symbol graphics, number of reels, different arrangements of rows r and columns c of the game display matrix, bonus trigger conditions, bonus play and award structure. It would be advantageous if a player could select, from an inventory of games, two or more different games or several instances of a favorite game along with another favorite game to play simultaneously or concurrently. By simultaneous or concurrent play what is meant is that the games are presented together and outcomes are displayed to occur at the same time or serially substantially one after the other in, for example, a choreographed presentation.
In view of the foregoing it would be advantageous to provide an apparatus, method and system which can provide for concurrent play at a single device, such as a gaming machine, of multiple different games. This approach would satisfy the player's desire to play one or more instances of different games at a single device and provide multiple chances to win awards, without tying up one or more adjacent machines and would provide benefit to the game provider of increased play and, where the gaming is pay-to-play (P2P) provide a vehicle to increase the amounts wagered. It would be advantageous to choreograph the presentation of a plurality of games in a manner pleasing to the player.
The current physical button offerings, as well as the OLED button panel, require specialized set-up, and configurations to support the types of bet/line configurations offered to our customers.
All existing implementations suffer from a major flaw in that they are limited to what games may be concurrently wagered upon. Specifically, when using fixed label buttons, or equivalent individual buttons with OLED displays, it is essential that each game being concurrently wagered upon have exactly the same configuration of line and bet structure. Accordingly, even though each game may be different, they share an identical number of pay lines, and also the same progression of pay lines. In addition, the bet progression for each game must also match. In practice, this limitation means that the offered games are quite similar mathematically, as the number of pay lines is one of the main drivers of volatility.
There is a continuing need to address these limitations and enable the deployment of arbitrary arrangements of games. The current limitations of being limited to a small subset of games that are dependent upon the first game chosen are detrimental to player choice and player excitement in a gaming environment.